The radio was working, ergo the battery was working. Failure sequence (excluding the feed tanks LO and numerous shutdown warnings) would quite possibly be AC1/2 and no APU start available, possible loss of SBYGEN resulting EMDC/AC with all of those implications. Not a good place to be.

"Miss, Lamia 933 is in total failure, total electrical failure, without fuel"

The fact that this is being transmitted from the stricken plane means that some electrical systems were still available, running on battery power with the aircraft in the descent, in the glide. On this occasion the glide did not work out for these most unfortunate people. I do though wonder what the theoretical glide performance of this particular aircraft, in the given circumstances would have been.

twincommander, I can only concur with your comments. Earlier in the thread someone posted a list of instruments that would still be available after generator loss. I'm unclear if that was for a 146 or an RJ now. Losing all your EFIS in an RJ would be a scary event, especially at night.

The British press are still reporting that the flight was from São Paulo to Medellin via Santa Cruz with Lamia but other agencies are saying the leg to Bolivia was a commercial flight. Lamia had been refused by the Brazilian aviation authorities as it was not registered. Somebody in Brazil was keen that the team used Lamia come what may. This stinks of backhanders and commissions . What a tragedy for those innocent people

Hi profile flight. If you declare an emergency with such valued customers you might lose your job.

And if you don't, maybe you and your pax lose your life. Not that hard of a choice, is it? (Hmm, I say that full well admitting that there is a certain idea among certain pilots that "it is better to die than to look bad" but I never considered that a PoV among transport/passenger carrying pilots). Afterthought, having now read the BBC article:

Quote:

Moments before the flight took off, Mauro Stumpf from the team's coaching staff said he hoped the airline brought them "good luck" - as when the team flew with the same company for the quarter-finals.

That one hurts right in the heart strings. He may not have realized that someone in that company was relying on good luck for this flight to get them there ...

The investigation will no doubt reveal when the batteries were last serviced or replaced for this aircraft. You would expect essential or emergency buss power to be maintained for a decent interval after all-engine flameout... and not for the transponder, navaids to 'go dark' so quickly.

Once the engines flame out it is almost certainly all over in this scenario.....

"From what I understand, there was going to be a stop in Cobija. But the plane that was bringing the players from Chapecoense to Bolivia was delayed. As a result, they couldn't land in Cobija, there are no night operations at Cobija, in fact there are no lights on the runway. So they decided to fill the tank completely, with fuel. In addition to that, the players had to train. It would have been enough to get there, but they were forced to wait which used up all the fuel. They took the decision to fill the tank completely, which isn't something they usually do but it would have been possible to land, considering they were only 17 miles from the airport, about 3 to 5 minutes. Being in holding traffic is what ended up using all the fuel that was left. However, we have to await the analysis of the black boxes to find out, for certain, what really happened."

Said the son of the co-pilot, who is in his last year of training to be a pilot.

Yup, been shown this 'clever trick' by some morons early in my career, when flying for a somewhat shady charter operator. However, it's not clever and, in fact, not legal. If you re-dispatch in the air (which the above in-fact is), you are still supposed to have alternate, final reserve AND contingency fuel for the remainder of the flight.

Properly done, re-dispatch can save a couple of kg's and possibly prevent a fuel stop on the way, but it is not a license to operate without adequate reserves...

@Sidestick... You don't appear to understand the concept of using an en-route alternate to reduce contingency (or statistical contingency) fuel.

It is not a shady practice and is written into most EASA Ops Manuals. The entire amount of Contingency fuel may be used at the Captain's discretion any time after dispatch.

The fact that this is being transmitted from the stricken plane means that some electrical systems were still available, running on battery power with the aircraft in the descent, in the glide. On this occasion the glide did not work out for these most unfortunate people. I do though wonder what the theoretical glide performance of this particular aircraft, in the given circumstances would have been.

The 146 has been proven to glide rather well. But not recommended in the vicinity of high terrain.

First off, nice illustration of a fuel planning approach. Now just to play devil's advocate: if forecast winds aloft are 70-90 knots tail wind component at planned FL, you can see how someone might talk themselves into figuring that they can make it. I prefer your approach, however. Later Edit: I did a little poking about at some met sites, and from what I found, a tail wind approaching that value was not available for that night's flight. Maybe that was a bad example of how one might talk one's self into making this a one leg flight.

They took the decision to fill the tank completely, which isn't something they usually do but it would have been possible to land, considering they were only 17 miles from the airport, about 3 to 5 minutes. Being in holding traffic is what ended up using all the fuel that was left. However, we have to await the analysis of the black boxes to find out, for certain, what really happened."

Said the son of the co-pilot, who is in his last year of training to be a pilot.